Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 259, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 November 1917 — MOODS OF WARTIME [ARTICLE]

MOODS OF WARTIME

How the Psalmist Voices Comfort, Cheer, x Strength and Courage to Human Heart “Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee.” i —Ps. 4:22. • It is one of the marks of the in* splratlon of the Psalms that we turn quite naturally to their splendid phrases to find expression for our deepest thoughts. When our hearts are stirred, the right words do not always come to us. But we find them In the Psalter. And, if I mistake not, there is tn the words of the fifty-fifth Psalm. a quite extraordinary appropriateness to our thoughts in these great days of alternate hope and fear, and anger and grief, and pride and patience, ft is a Psalm for time of war; it is war that the Psalmist had in his thoughts. And it seems to express the varying moods which we observe in our neighbors, and of which we are half conscious in ourselves, as we try to keep our mental sanity, our Christian faith. The Psalm begins and ends with prayer, for it is the outpouring of his heart’s desires by a godly man; but he passes through various phases of thought as he prays—some worthy of the highest Christian saintliness —some not so worthy, for he had the weaknesses common to our poor humanity. “Hear my prayer.” So he begins. It is the Inevitable petition of an unquiet soul. “Hear my prayer.” But the singer is afraid, for the danger is near. “The ungodly cometh on so fast; they are minded to do some mischief, so maliciously are they set against me.” He is fainthearted, he doubts the ultimate issue. “My heart is disquieted within me—fearfulness and j trembling are common upon me.” And he would fain escape from the horror and misery of it all. “Oh, for the wings of a dove, for then would I flee away and be at rest. I would get me away far off . . .” to the wilderness, If need be. "I would make haste to escape.” “Oh, for the wings of a dove!” The words, when set to the luscious music of Mendelssohn, charm the ear, and they find a response In that desire for peace and rest which is the emotion of every tender and kindly heart, "Oh, for the wings of a dove !” Yet that is not the Christian attitude to the stern realities of life. It is a mood through which our thoughts may pass. But it is an unworthy mood. It is not the mood of faith, and another Psalm tells us so. “In the Lord I put my trust; how say ye then to my soul that she should flee as a bird unto the hill?” ——'——7- -~ And so we pass on to the best thought of all—the thought which is the true key to the brave old Psalmist’s courage and hope. With it he begins—“ Hear my prayer,” for that is the prayer of faith as well as the prayer of fearfulness. To it he passes nn—“Aw for me, I will call upon God, and the Lord shall save me. In the evening and morning and at noonday will I pray, and that instantly; and he shall hear my voice.” For this is the mood of prayer, of the consecration of all high endeavor, of the hallowing of pain. “Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee.” Here is no counsel for a weakling or a craven,'but of a brave man who has faced the worst. "Cast thy burden upon the Lord.” It does not mean that we shall leave the part of danger to others, and rest in security the while, craven-hearted. It is not to sing, “Oh, for the brings of a dove, that there may be a way of escape.” Nor does it mean that, as we fight, we curse the while. To fight without cur sing in the cause of righteousness is to follow in the steps of the great Captain of the Christian soul. And so it means that we shall best fortify our spirits by prayer. And for us all, even while our hearts leap as we read of the deeds done by those of our own blood and speech—for us all, the Psalmist’s message is, “Cast thy burden upon the Lord.” This is his final mood; this is the issue of his thought. Cast thy burden here. Thus only can we stay the throbbing of our pulse and anchor our souls upon a rock. The way may be long before we reach the end of the journey. It must be a way of pain. But the way of the Cross is the way of light And this isthe way of the great crusade.— By the Archbishop of Dublin.